Toby Harnden was the Daily Telegraph's US Editor, based in Washington DC, from 2006 to 2011. Click here for Toby's website. Follow him on Twitter here @tobyharnden and on Facebook here. He is the author of the bestselling book Dead Men Risen: The Welsh Guards and the Defining Story Britain's War in Afghanistan.

Hillary Clinton backtracks on Northern Ireland

Perhaps realising the dangerous potential for a Bosnia-sniper-fire-style debacle over her preposterous claim that she was "instrumental" in bringing peace to Northern Ireland, Hillary Clinton has just issued a bland statement marking the 10th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement. In it, she salutes "the brave and tireless efforts of the parties" and notes that "the real credit for peace can only go to the brave people of Northern Ireland".

Embellished: The Clintons' visit to Tuzla, Bosnia in 1996

She adds that "helping to advance the peace process and to achieve the Good Friday Agreement is one of my husband's proudest accomplishments as President". Of her own contribution, which she has previously inflated beyond the point of credibility, she says merely: "And I too am proud to have played a role in that effort." So she's toned down the blarney considerably a victory for press scrutiny and common sense. Let's see how long it lasts.

The weird thing about the sniper fantasy was that it was so demonstrably false and the real events had been witnessed by so many reporters. It seems to me that only some kind of weird psychological condition could have prompted her to persist not only in telling the exaggerated story but embellishing it a bit more each time.

Of course, the statement will have been carefully prepared by staff seeking to avoid more controversy. Out on the stump when the pressure is on and the temptation to pander is there, the Former First Lady has shown she can get a bit carried away.

Obama got his statement out first. Interestingly, he called the agreement the "Belfast Agreement", a term normally used by Unionists. Nationalists and journalists tend to use Good Friday Agreement, which if I remember rightly was coined by the late Mo Mowlam, then Northern Ireland Secretary. For a few days afterwards (I was the Telegraph's Ireland Correspondent at the time) I referred to it as the Stormont Agreement but that never caught on.

While Obama promised merely that the US "will remain a friend and partner of the people of Northern Ireland", at an event in New York on Wednesday night Hillary unveiled a laundry list of pledges. There's audio of the event here.

They include a Northern Ireland envoy who "reports directly to me rather than having to go up and down the chain of command", the creation of something called "Irish bonds" to promote economic investment in Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic, the holding of an America-Ireland trade conference at the White House during the first two years of her administration, a commitment to meet Northern Ireland leaders and a promise to visit Ireland. She even referred to working "with the Irish lobby" on immigration reform.

This is part of a pattern in which Hillary makes all sorts of undertakings to different interest groups while Obama takes a broader, more general approach which is why he has kept, for instance, Irish-Americans and the gay community at arm's length. It's a change from old-style identity politics.

Hillary Clinton on the other hand seems to think that anything that might bring in a handful of votes at this stage is worth it hence her assurance yesterday that she would reinstate St Patrick's Day parties at the White House.